Nicolas Cage Blog

Ghost Rider: Drama. Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Peter Fonda, Sam Elliott and Wes Bentley. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. (PG-13. 114 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. To see complete movie listings and show times, and to buy tickets for select theaters, go to sfgate.com/movies.)

---

It's fascinating to watch an actor who thinks he's in a good film when he's really in a bad one. Perhaps Nicolas Cage was trying to elevate "Ghost Rider" with the power of his performance. Or maybe he had no idea how silly his character would look when the special-effects people were done -- as if someone poured lighter fluid on the skeleton from your seventh-grade science class."Ghost Rider" has everything you don't want from your superhero movie, including lack of logic, boring action scenes, bad acting in the supporting performances, a brutally slow 114-minute running time and cringe-worthy dialogue.
The movie also, unfortunately, does a lot to undo the recent goodwill that "Batman Begins," "Sin City," "A History of Violence" and "V for Vendetta" have built toward this underappreciated genre of films. If "300" doesn't kick supreme butt next month, people might ditch "graphic novel" from their lingo and start calling them "comic books" again.
"Ghost Rider" sticks pretty close to the cult favorite comic, which focuses on the story of Johnny Blaze, an Evel Knievel-like stunt rider who sells his soul to the devil and turns into a motorcycle-riding yule log whenever it's dark out and he's in the presence of evil.
After a long beginning that covers how Blaze got his powers -- easily the best part of the movie -- he becomes a "bounty hunter for rogue demons," including a devil-spawn named Black Heart. Rolling through the streets on a flaming bike, breaking windows and scarring pavement along the way, Blaze tries to control his powers and make some good out of his bad situation.
It's close to the classic werewolf story, except with biker and Western themes, which should be really awesome. Unfortunately, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson's dialogue is Hallmark-horrible ("He may have my soul. But he doesn't have my spirit!"), the romance is filled with "Three's Company"-style misunderstandings, the effects are occasionally ridiculous and the lack of logic is often distracting.
(Without pulling out actuarial tables, it seems sort of pointless when the Ghost Rider causes approximately $50 million in property damage just to rid the world of one mugger.)
At least Cage does everything right, taking his already polished Elvis imitation and tweaking it a bit, making the character eccentric -- he listens to the Carpenters and watches too much bad TV -- while still seeming cool and heroic. People criticize Cage for playing too many action characters after winning a best actor Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas," but it's hard to find flaws with his actual performances. He single-handedly makes this movie worth watching for free on cable.
As good as Cage is in "Ghost Rider," the rest of the actors are lacking. Peter Fonda plays the devil, and while the "Easy Rider" reference might have been kind of cool the first time you saw a "Ghost Rider" commercial, he's horribly miscast.
The hotness of Eva Mendes as Blaze's love Roxanne is impossible to deny. (And impossible to miss -- the camera seems to focus on her cleavage every time she's in a scene. I'm not 100 percent certain her head was ever in the movie.) But she's even more distracting than Fonda, playing one of the worst TV news reporters ever. Even KRON would probably fire her for incompetence.
Also for your Razzie Award consideration is Wes Bentley as the main bad guy, Black Heart, although to be fair, much of the problem is his makeup. Robert Smith of the Cure is cool, but he doesn't have the type of look that strikes fear in audiences. Everyone who watched "X-Men" knows that the best graphic novel bad guys look like James Hetfield from "Metallica."
-- Advisory: This film contains violence, adult language and some disturbing images. Example: In one scene, Nicolas Cage appears to be wearing Ricardo Montalban's fake chest from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," which really should be hanging in the Smithsonian where it belongs.